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Wife grieves for husband missing on MH370

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Story highlights

U.S. equipment to help find the plane's locator beacon arrives in Perth

Wife of passenger: "I can't trust the Malaysian government"

Weather in search area is expected to worsen again Thursday

Indian Ocean search resumes; aircraft and boats from six countries participating

Cheng Li Ping is afraid to tell her sons their father might never come home.

"My heart can't handle it. I don't want to hurt my children," the Chinese woman told CNN Wednesday as she waited in Kuala Lumpur for evidence about what happened to her husband and the 238 others who were aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Cheng says she cannot bring herself to accept that her husband is dead, even after authorities announced there were no survivors.

"I can't trust the Malaysian government. I can't work now because all I can think about is my husband and my children," she told CNN's Sara Sidner in Kuala Lumpur. "I don't have strength. ... My head is a mess."

Malaysian officials say they can tell you how Flight 370 ended. It crashed into the Indian Ocean, they'll say, citing complicated math as proof.

They can tell you when it probably happened -- on March 8, sometime between 8:11 and 9:15 a.m. (7:11 to 8:15 p.m. ET March 7), handing you a sheet with extraordinarily technical details about satellite communications technology.

What they still can't tell you is why, or precisely where, or show you a piece of the wreckage.

All those uncertainties are too much for Cheng and other relatives of people aboard the plane.

In Beijing, outraged family members marched to the Malaysian Embassy to denounce the airline, the country and just about everything involved with an investigation that has transfixed the world and vexed experts.

Steve Wang, whose mother was aboard the flight, told reporters he felt there was "no evidence" that the passenger jet crashed in the Indian Ocean.

"If you find something: OK, we accept," he said. "But nothing -- just from the data, just from analysis."

Photos:The search for MH370

Photos:The search for MH370

Two years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing, a relative of one of the passengers burns incense in Beijing on March 8, 2016. Flight 370 vanished on March 8, 2014, as it flew from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. There were 239 people on board.

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Photos:The search for MH370

On July 29, police carry a piece of debris on Reunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. A week later, authorities confirmed that the debris was from the missing flight.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Staff members with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau examine a piece of aircraft debris at their laboratory in Canberra, Australia, on July 20. The flap was found in June by residents on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania, and officials had said it was highly likely to have come from Flight 370. Experts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading up the search for the plane, confirmed that the part was indeed from the missing aircraft.

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Photos:The search for MH370

In late February, American tourist Blaine Gibson found a piece of plane debris off Mozambique, a discovery that renewed hope of solving the mystery of the missing flight. The piece measured 35 inches by 22 inches. A U.S. official said it was likely the wreckage came from a Boeing 777, which MH370 was.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Relatives of the flight's passengers console each other outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Subang, Malaysia, on February 12, 2015. Protesters had demanded that the airline withdraw the statement that all 239 people aboard the plane were dead.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A police officer watches a couple cry outside the airline's office building in Beijing after officials refused to meet with them on June 11, 2014. The couple's son was on the plane.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Members of the media scramble to speak with Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Department, at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 27, 2014. Data from communications between satellites and the missing flight was released the day before, more than two months after relatives of passengers said they requested it be made public.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Operators aboard the Australian ship Ocean Shield move Bluefin-21, the U.S. Navy's autonomous underwater vehicle, into position to search for the jet on April 14, 2014.

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A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks out of a window while searching for debris off the coast of western Australia on April 13, 2014.

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The HMS Echo, a vessel with the British Roya; Navy, moves through the waters of the southern Indian Ocean on April 12, 2014.

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A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion, on a mission to drop sonar buoys to assist in the search, flies past the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 9, 2014.

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A relative of a missing passenger cries at a vigil in Beijing on April 8, 2014.

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Australian Defense Force divers scan the water for debris in the southern Indian Ocean on April 7, 2014.

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A towed pinger locator is readied to be deployed off the deck of the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 7, 2014.

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A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks at a flare in the Indian Ocean during search operations on April 4, 2014.

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On March 30, 2014, a woman in Kuala Lumpur prepares for an event in honor of those aboard Flight 370.

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The sole representative for the families of Flight 370 passengers leaves a conference at a Beijing hotel on March 28, 2014, after other relatives left en masse to protest the Malaysian government's response to their questions.

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A member of the Royal Australian Air Force is silhouetted against the southern Indian Ocean during the search for the missing jet on March 27, 2014.

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Flight Lt. Jayson Nichols looks at a map aboard a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft during a search on March 27, 2014.

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People in Kuala Lumpur light candles during a ceremony held for the missing flight's passengers on March 27, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, delivers a statement about the flight on March 24, 2014. Razak's announcement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH 370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived."

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Grieving relatives of missing passengers leave a hotel in Beijing on March 24, 2014.

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A passenger views a weather map in the departures terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 22, 2014.

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A Chinese satellite captured this image, released on March 22, 2014, of a floating object in the Indian Ocean, according to China's State Administration of Science. It was a possible lead in the search for the missing plane. Surveillance planes were looking for two objects spotted by satellite imagery in remote, treacherous waters more than 1,400 miles from the west coast of Australia.

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Satellite imagery provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on March 20, 2014, showed debris in the southern Indian Ocean that could have been from Flight 370. The announcement by Australian officials raised hopes of a breakthrough in the frustrating search.

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Another satellite shot provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows possible debris from the flight.

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A distraught relative of a missing passenger breaks down while talking to reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 19, 2014.

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On March 18, 2014, a relative of a missing passenger tells reporters in Beijing about a hunger strike to protest authorities' handling of information about the missing jet.

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U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations in the Indian Ocean on March 16, 2014.

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Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on March 13, 2014. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, search efforts expanded west into the Indian Ocean.

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A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13, 2014.

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Malaysian air force members look for debris near Kuala Lumpur on March 13, 2014.

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Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12, 2014.

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A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on March 11, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported on March 8, 2014. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10, 2014.

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Photos:The search for MH370

A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews on March 9, 2014, before returning to search for the missing plane in the Gulf of Thailand.

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Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9, 2014.

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Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9, 2014.

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The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea on March 9, 2014.

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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014.

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A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.

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How Inmarsat found MH370's path

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"They have been hiding the truth," she said. "Even though they know the truth, they have been delaying it and missed out on the golden time for the search."

Malaysia Airlines says it is giving the families all the information it can and is sharing it as quickly as possible. And authorities say they know the news is hard to take. But Tuesday, acting Malaysian Transportation Minister Hishammuddin Hussein defended the decision to release the analysis and the heartbreaking conclusions that flowed from it.

"It was released out of a commitment to openness and respect for the relatives, two principles which have guided the investigation," he said.

That investigation now focuses on an area of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia's west coast, where authorities believe the plane went down after a long, odd, unexplained flight that should have ended hours before in Beijing.

Searching there resumed Wednesday after bad weather grounded planes for a day.

Hishammuddin said authorities have stopped searching for the plane altogether along a northern arc that stretched from Vietnam to Kazakhstan. Analysis of data by British satellite company Inmarsat and British accident investigators show the Boeing 777-200ER was heading south at last contact, he said.

Commercial satellite data from a U.S. company, first analyzed by Australian officials, as well as satellite data from China and France, have turned up evidence of debris bobbing in the general area where authorities believe the plane went down.

Australian and Chinese surveillance planes have both reported seeing debris on the water, but so far nothing has been recovered or definitively linked to the missing flight.

Authorities cautioned that despite the narrowing the search area, it could still be some time before crews find any sign of the airplane.

"We're not searching for a needle in a haystack," Mark Binskin, vice chief of the Australian Defence Force, told reporters. "We're still trying to define where the haystack is."

Search resumes after weather delay

After bad weather halted the hunt for a day, searching resumed Wednesday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.

A Chinese plane took off for the search area in the Indian Ocean at 5 a.m. Wednesday (5 p.m. ET Tuesday), several hours ahead of schedule, the authority said.

Gale-force winds, large waves, heavy rain and low clouds lashed the search area Tuesday, making it impossible to dispatch surveillance planes to the scene and making it all but impossible to spot anything from ships.

"It's a pretty remote area and weather conditions can get very, very bad, very, very quickly," said Neil Bennett of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. "At the moment, we're looking at a good day today, but we are expecting conditions to deteriorate again tomorrow."

Wednesday's search is set to include ships and aircraft from six countries: Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan, China and South Korea.

Twelve aircraft will be part of the search, Australian officials said.

Australia's HMAS Success and China's Xue Long polar supply ship are also in the search area, officials said.

U.S. equipment to help find the plane's locator beacon arrived in Perth on Wednesday.

But even with more searchers and equipment and calmer weather, the effort will still face severe challenges.

The area is extraordinarily remote -- some 1,500 miles from Perth, where military surveillance planes capable of searching the site are based. It is also astoundingly large --- some 400,000 to 500,000 square miles of ocean.

"With eight hours of flying to and from the search region, the fleet of P-3 Orion aircraft and other military aircraft have only a precious few hours to scour the search tracks they have been given," Australian Defence Minister David Johnston said.

To complicate matters, debris that may have been floating days ago, when some of the satellite images were taken, could have sunk by now. Other debris may have drifted hundreds of miles.

He said the analysis was based on sophisticated mathematics calculating how long it took signals from a transmitter on the plane to reach an orbiting Inmarsat communications satellite.

Much like the horn from a passing car whose pitch rises as it approaches and then falls as it races away, engineers were able examine the satellite's signal and determine it had to be moving south, he said.

Engineers checked their calculations against data from other Boeing 777 flights that day and found their technique was sound, he said.

One mystery remains in the data: The plane's transmitter and satellite tried to make one final connection at 8:19 a.m.

"At this time this transmission is not understood and is subject to further ongoing work," he said.

The analysis shows that the plane didn't answer a ping from the satellite ground station at 9:15 a.m. (8:15 p.m. ET), leading investigators to conclude the plane's satellite transmitter stopped working sometime between 8:11 and 9:15 a.m.

"This," Hishammuddin said, "is consistent with the maximum endurance of the aircraft."

That partial ping could be a key detail that helps investigators unravel what happened, experts said Tuesday.

"I think it's very significant," CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien said. "This is the last time we hear from the aircraft. You have to wonder what was going on that might have sparked (it)."

Malaysia has convened an international working group to help further narrow the search area. It involves agencies with "expertise in satellite communications and aircraft performance," he said.

It will build on the existing analysis of satellite data in hopes of pinpointing a more exact location for the plane's location.

What happened to cause the plane to veer off course and presumably crash into the Indian Ocean hours after it was supposed to arrive in Beijing remains unknown. Authorities and analysts have speculated anything from mechanical failure to terrorism to pilot suicide could have played a role.

Police have interviewed scores of people, and the Royal Malaysian Air Force is conducting its own inquiry into the disappearance, authorities say.

Anguished families react

The Malaysian government's announcement was met with anger by relatives, many of whom said it was premature to declare their loved ones dead before locating any wreckage or bodies. Others accused Malaysian officials of lying or concealing facts.

Relatives first learned of the conclusion that the plane had crashed via a text message sent to their cell phones. Malaysian authorities followed up with briefings for families in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

In Beijing, hundreds of friends and family members of missing passengers marched to the Malaysian Embassy to express their anger and frustration.

Uniformed police blocked journalists from joining the protesters as they approached the gates of the embassy. One woman in the crowd, overcome by stress and emotion, was carried to a nearby ambulance on a stretcher.

Malaysian officials said they are doing all they can.

Prime Minister Najib Razak explained Tuesday that he decided to make his official announcement Monday because he did not want the government to be seen as hiding information on purpose from the families of the missing passengers.

In an address to Parliament in Kuala Lumpur, he said his statement was based on "the most conclusive information we have."

Malaysia Airlines said Tuesday it has offered family members financial support of $5,000 for each passenger aboard the ill-fated flight and was preparing to make additional payments as the prolonged search continues.

"We all feel enormous sorrow and pain," he said Tuesday. "Sorrow that all those who boarded Flight MH370 on Saturday 8th March, will not see their families again. And that those families will now have to live on without those they love."